Roy Keane will take advantage of the free weekend beckoning later this month by whisking Sunderland’s players away for a break. “We’ll be going on a nice trip, all right, don’t worry about that,” the manager said. “To a prison camp.”

Somebody deserves locking up after the club’s supine departure from the FA Cup because this performance was a crime against football. That the competition is being sponsored by E.ON is merely irony heaped upon embarrassment; there was no energy and precious little illumination in the Stadium of Light. Sunderland were that bad.

“It felt like a testimonial game,” Nyron Nosworthy, the defender, said. “It wasn’t taken seriously enough.”

Few escaped blame, but accountability is trained in one direction. Because of Keane’s aura as a player, his success last season, his obvious passion and the unequivocal support of his directors, the manager has largely escaped scrutiny, but losing 3-0 at home to Wigan Athletic invites it.

“Sole responsibility lies on my shoulders, 100 per cent,” Keane said. “I picked the team and a lot of them were players I brought here. We are focused on the Premier League now, but there have been too many occasions like this. Clearly, I’m not doing my job. Eventually, time runs out on everybody. How many times will Sunderland fans hear me say I’m determined to get it right?”

Securing their league status remains Keane’s priority, but is that aim assisted by the hollow promise that Sunderland would not treat the FA Cup with disrespect? Will it help in the process of signing players this month? “We hope to bring in three or four,” Keane said. “But, after today, they’ll be asking for higher wages.”

Whether Sunderland’s sinking feeling also proves to be a turning point will become apparent shortly. Keane could look to Steve Bruce, who has transformed Wigan’s fortunes. His second match in charge was a 4-1 defeat away to Bolton Wanderers, after which he feared being “marooned”, but they have lost only one of the next six matches.

The joker who posted a picture of a young Bruce, complete with shock of orange hair, on Wigan’s dressing-room tactics board, struck an appropriate mood. “You need a bit of spirit and if that comes from taking the p**s out of the manager, so be it,” Bruce said.

Wigan made seven changes, but the stand-ins were not required to excel. Paul Scharner opened the scoring with a free header, Paul McShane thrashed a clearance beyond Craig Gordon, his own goalkeeper, and, while David Cotterill’s goal was exquisite, it was also an irrelevance. Both teams struck the woodwork, but, long before, Sunderland had hit the buffers.

Sunderland (4-4-2): C Gordon 4 — N Nosworthy 4, P McShane 2, J Evans 4, D Collins 4 — K Richardson 4 (sub: D Connolly, 74min), G Kavanagh 5, D Whitehead 4 (sub: G Leadbitter, 58 4), R O’Donovan 4 — D Murphy 5, M Waghorn 4 (sub: A Cole, 58 4). Substitutes not used: R Anderson, M Fulop.

Wigan Athletic (4-4-2): M Pollitt 6 — E Boyce 6, P Scharner 8, A Granqvist 7, K Kilbane 6 — R Taylor (sub: D Cotterill, 15 7), J Skoko 7, S Olembe 7, J Koumas 6 — A Sibierski 5 (sub: J Aghahowa, 43 6), E Heskey 6 (sub: M Brown, 72). Substitutes not used: C Kirkland, L A Valencia.

Referee M Riley
Attendance 20,821

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